Thursday, May 16, 2013
Statement on the release of the Senate Ways and Means FY14 budget
Yesterday I released the following statement, after the Senate Committee on Ways and Means unveiled its $33.9 billion budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2014:
“The Fiscal Year 2014 budget proposal
released today by the Senate Committee on Ways and Means clearly rejects once
again the massive tax and spend measures that have been advocated by Governor
Patrick, and responds to some important spending priorities such as
transportation, special education and police training. It also provides a “killed in the line of
duty” death benefit for the family of slain MIT police officer Sean Collier, which
is the right thing to do in light of the ultimate sacrifice made by this young
officer who had such a promising life and career ahead of him.
The Senate Ways and Means budget makes a notable effort to reduce spending in many accounts. Yet, in responding to yet another sizable budget gap, today’s proposal relies on a combination of over $627 million from one-time revenue sources and $450 million in tax increases, and that’s on top of the millions of dollars in additional tax increases that have been approved in recent years, including a $900 million increase in the sales tax implemented in 2009.
In order to put our state on a steady
path toward economic prosperity and future balanced budgets, we need to ensure
that the spending proposed by the Senate Ways and Means Committee can be
sustained without continuing to resort to one-time fixes and burdening
struggling household budgets with more taxes.
We must always remember that we live in uncertain economic times and the
robust economic recovery we’ve hoped for hasn’t materialized. Rather than continuing to raise taxes by
millions of dollars, we need to address the real problems of unsustainable state
spending and the need to create more jobs and enable a stronger economic
recovery than the one we’re experiencing.
As we move forward in the budget
process and prepare for next week’s floor debate, the Senate Republican Caucus
will be looking for every opportunity to strengthen fiscal discipline in the
process and to promote the type of sustainable job growth we need to generate
the additional revenues that will help the state navigate through an uncertain economic
climate.”
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To view a copy of the proposed budget, click here.
